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Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Book Review: Indelible by Dawn Metcalf

I have to say that I actually enjoyed Indelible a lot. At times it moved way too slow for my preferences, but I'm going to overlook that.

I did like the new twist to the idea of the Fair Folk. I mean, in all the books I've read so far, the fairies are always extremely beautiful, mesmerizing and evil. They never have good intentions and will always act selfishly.

Not so here.

In the world of Indelible, rarely is a fairy looking anywhere close to resembling the humans. Most look grotesque - like a merge of several creatures. Of course, there are a handful of fair maiden warriors who look stunningly gorgeous, but this seems to be rather the exception, not the norm.

Our main fairy characters here are two personals, namely Indelible Ink and his 'sister' Invisible Inq. They're made entirely of ink and the sole purpose of their existence is marking up the humans with the sigils of the fey. As in, ensuring that humans will continue believing in the Fair Folk, thus ensuring the survival of said faery creatures.

As you can see, this is an entirely new concept here. But somehow I'm failing to understand how a person (or whatever Ink and Inq are, really) made entirely out of ink could experience any semblance of thoughts, feelings, etc. And, what bothers me the most is that it isn't explained. Since I'm not one of those people who take any information as a given, I can't just pass over this, as if it wasn't an issue. It is, and I need answers.

I must say however that besides this fallout, the story was quite nice. It had a nice flow, depth to the world building and characters. It did remind me of City of Bones in the first chapter, but then the resemblance was gone and I was left reading an entirely new idea, which I really enjoyed.

So, the lead female, Joy, won me over even though it took her some time. What I particularly liked about her was that she rarely acted stupid. She asked the right questions and didn't stop until a satisfactory enough answer was provided. Of course, there was something special about her that made even that stone hard Indelible Ink notice her and mark her as his own (even if it were an accident).

Undoubtedly, that single action of his was where the story began. From then on until the end it was a whirlwind of secrets, impossible visions, curses, adventure, war and of course, the sweetest romance. Ink was such an inexperienced, innocent boy, I believe our world needs more like him.